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Young Scholars Academy is a virtual village that helps twice-exceptional & differently-wired students to feel seen, nurtured, and happy as heck through strength-based courses, camps, and community!
Most Popular Blogs
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How A Strength-Based School Year Will Change Your Child’s Life!
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Goodbye to Social Skills Classes. Hello to Dungeons & Dragons!
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Creating Learning Plans That Work! The 3 KEY Ingredients
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Alternative Education Paths: Removing Barriers to Learning
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The Most Overlooked Support for 2e Students: Acceleration
Whether you're a parent, educator, or simply passionate about supporting neurodivergent learners, this blog is your go-to resource for all things related to strength-based education and fostering a community of belonging.
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Building Strength-Based IEPs/504s
Children are amazing!
They are funny, clever, and brave. They can remind us of all of the very best things about this world, and they are so much more than any IEP, 504, assessment, report, or document could ever say. They are more than a moment in their educational career, and they deserve to be seen as the complex, unique beings that they are.
So here are a few tips for helping the IEP/504 team develop a strength-based approach to your child’s educational needs.
Creating Learning Plans That Work: The 3 KEY Ingredients
Odds are, you are looking for a way to better align learning with your child.
Perhaps you’ve caught yourself fantasizing about learning that excites your child that you can feel good about.
You may be looking to supplement or create a learning plan for your child. Maybe you have been thinking about homeschooling for a while now.
Wherever you are on your journey, you may not know exactly where to start...
I'm here to tell you that that’s ok!
There are many paths to provide interest-led learning for your child, and not all of them are homeschool-focused.
To create a workable learning plan, one that both you and your child will like, you need to keep three things in mind. I call these the 3 KEY Ingredients. These are...
Every Hero Story Has This…
In every Hero Story there is always a guide. There is always a mentor who helps the hero come into themselves and do what they could not do themselves. Our hero is already extraordinary, but they often don't see their own powers...
More often than not, it's not even clear that our hero is a true hero until the mentor sets them on their journey of rebirth and growth.
Heroes become heroes because…
The Twice-exceptional Elephant: What 2e Is, and Most Importantly, What It Isn’t.
What exactly does 2e mean? How do you know your child is 2e? Who gets to define what 2e is, and maybe more importantly, what it isn’t? The Twice-exceptional Elephant analogy can help define what 2e is, and maybe more Importantly, what it isn’t.
I often joke that I will retire the day that when I tell people my purpose in this world is serving “twice-exceptional students,” they will say “nice!” instead of “what’s that mean?” While the term 2e, or twice-exceptional, has been around for a while as a concept, the terms are fairly new in the fields of psychology and education. If you haven’t heard it, don’t worry, you're not alone. It just means there’s still lots of work to do!
Developing Super Strengths, Not Super Deficits!
All too often our brilliant students are defined by what they don't do well... This continues to baffle me.
Imagine judging a dolphin for its inability to walk on land or a giraffe for not being able to dive deep into the water. It seems so blatantly obvious here, but we do this to our students all the time. We set expectations and don’t take time to evaluate their strengths, interests, or talents.
We know darn well that when our students are immersed in their interest areas and their strengths are supported and developed, there is truly no limit to what they can accomplish.
Look no further than this website that our eight-year-old students made.
More Diversity In Neurodiversity
MLK Jr. Day has me thinking…
Much like girls, people of color are wildly underserved in twice-exceptional education, gifted education, and the broader neurodiversity community.
Why? I ask myself.
The answer: profiling and societal expectations.
YSA Facebook Live 8/11/21
Missed last week's Live? Check out the recording here. We discussed cultivating environments to foster gifted behaviors. You’re not ogng to want to miss this one!
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